Possession
by Hybridkylin
Summary: Noun. The state of having, owning or controlling something. The thing being so controlled. The state of being completely dominated by an idea or emotion. The state of being controlled by a demon or spirit.
1. Catch

The oddest thing about it, Danny thought later, was how _ordinary_ the day had been.

It had been a sunny, Wednesday afternoon. There'd been only two ghost attacks that day, both in the morning, and thankfully both _far,_ _far_ away from Casper High. As usual, he and Sam and Tucker had walked home, and as was, not usual, but frequent, he'd said goodbye to them as they split off to get to their respective homes.

Then again, in hindsight, if things _had_ been more dramatic, if the sky had been overcast on the verge of raining, or if he'd taken that alley shortcut at night, he probably would have seen Phantom's glow behind the rubbish bins before nearly practically tripping over him.

He recovered his balance, looked to see what was under his feet, screamed in an absolutely not girly manner, regardless of what anyone else might say, reeled, and felt his back slam into the opposite alley wall, frozen in fear.

It was a reaction to ghosts he'd had for years, and it was always horrible waiting for his mind to unfreeze and his limbs to unstick so he could actually _run away_ at top speed. His parents had tried to train him out of it multiple times, and Jazz had psychologically speculated about it, and neither of them had helped. As fear reactions went, it wasn't as bad as those fainting goats he'd seen on YouTube, but it still wasn't pleasant.

Green eyes locked to him, and he felt the iron grip around his limbs tighten. _Come on, move, please move._ The ghost, and his legs, stayed where they were.

He shouldn't have been that surprised about it. Now that he came to notice, a large puddle of familiarly glowing green had pooled around where it was slumped in the corner of the trash and the wall, spilling from an ugly looking chest wound that a gloved hand was futilely trying to plug. The pool showed scrapes and splatters along one edge and Danny knew if he looked down he'd probably see his sneakers were stained with the same substance. Ew.

He still couldn't take his eyes from it, though. Everyone knew about Phantom. A very powerful ghost, strong enough to take down quite a few others, and who _did_ so, proclaiming himself the city's hero. Strong, fast, invincible, _dangerous_ Phantom.

Bleeding in a back alley.

In a detached manner, he wondered exactly how much Paulina would freak out if she were here.

The ghost coughed, and _more_ ectoplasm splattered into and merged with the growing puddle. Green sparks flickered and crackled around its form, causing it to spasm and its face to contort with pain in a strangled scream. When they stopped, it slumped further, even though Danny had previously thought it to be at maximum slumping level.

"You should…," it rasped, quietly, and Danny flinched at its sudden voice. "…move… along, citizen." It tried for a weak smile, but only managed 'pained'.

"Danny."

Danny was just as surprised as anyone when he heard himself speak. The instinctual anchors on his bones were ebbing away at the distinct lack of threat, though his rational mind ensured some caution remained. His parents had warned him that even a greatly injured ghost could do a lot of damage before it finally disintegrated. He shifted from one foot to the other, ready to _move_ as soon as it tried anything.

"My name's Danny."

"Danny," it repeated, with clear effort. "You… should leave. You don't… want to see… this."

A sound came from around the corner, and both heads snapped towards it. It resolved into voices, and the slight movement of shadows on the wall. Voices, Danny realized with a start, that he recognized.

"…_trail leads here. We've finally caught him!_"

"_Ooh, I can't wait to find out what makes this spook tick!_"

Danny didn't think it was possible for a ghost to pale, but Phantom managed it. "_Go_," it hissed at him, eyes white all around the irises. He'd never seen such raw _fear_ in anyone's before, and as the voices came closer and the shadows got larger, he watch as it flickered and died /literally, the glow of them dulled) into a neck baring resignation that was somehow even _worse_.

Danny made a decision that altered everything that came after, and which at the time the rest of him had been screaming was absolutely stupid. He took off his backpack and began rapidly rummaging through it. The ghost gave him a puzzled expression, which quickly turned into a wary one when what Danny had been looking for rolled out onto the concrete with a _clink_.

When the ghost attacks had increased in frequency a few years ago, his parents had given him a new invention to carry around. The school had confiscated the ectogun they'd previously given him to protect himself after Lancer had seen it in his locker, something he would never admit to them he was grateful for, and to replace it they'd decided on something relatively innocuous looking, although the word could only ever be dubiously applied to Fenton tech. A thermos which could, apparently, suck in and trap ghosts, and his dad had clapped him on the back so hard he'd nearly fallen over and told him that if he caught any ghosts he could bring them to him.

It had never been used.

Danny picked it up in shaking hands, the ghost's gaze not leaving it even as it moved. He licked his lips.

"This… it's for containment. Of ghosts," he whispered. He uncapped it, and the ghost tensed. He looked at the direction his parents were coming from. They were taking their time, talking to each other, probably cataloging whatever trail they'd been talking about, confident that their prey couldn't escape. The ghost looked too, eyes flicking between there and the thermos. "…Do you trust me?"

One second, two… and the ghost slowly nodded, still looking uneasy, but not as paradoxically _dead_ as it had a second ago. Danny took a deep breath, _now or never, _pointed the business end towards the spectre, closed his eyes, and pressed the red button.

His dad had never told him about the _recoil_.

He was jerked forward as a bright white flash turned the insides of his eyelids red, and ended up dropping it with a clatter as he stumbled. He opened his eyes to see it roll to the edge of the now empty ectoplasm pool, a small stream of white smoke coming from the muzzle and a green light that hadn't been there before blinking on the side which presumably meant it was occupied. He hurriedly snatched it up and capped it, shoving it back into his bag and standing up straight just as his parents rounded the corner.

He pasted what he hoped was a convincing grin on his face.

Maddie took one look at the ectoplasm pool and Danny's pale, shaken countenance, and rushed over to him, checking him over with motherly concern. "Oh, sweetie. It didn't hurt you, did it?"

"Did you show it the old Fenton one two?" His dad followed up behind, dragging something that looked like a weird kind of vacuum cleaner. "Aha!" He pointed the nozzle at the puddle and fired, and nothing happened. "Hmmm, it's not there."

"That's odd." His mother replied. "It shouldn't have been able to move." Danny's strained grin nervously widened as she looked at him.

"It, uh, it wasn't there!" he blurted out. "I just slipped on some ectoplasm, I'll be all right!" There was a nervewrecking beat, and his mother sighed.

"That's the second time this one's escaped," she frowned, looking at the puddle that was all that remained. "Looks like it disintegrated before we got here, Jack." Behind her, Danny couldn't help exhaling in relief.

Jack looked like a kid who'd had his puppy kicked and then been told that Christmas wasn't coming this year. "Aww, I wanted to test out the Weasel."

"Maybe next time, dear." She pecked him on the cheek, and Danny made a face.

As he walked home with the embarrassment that was his parents, he was hyperaware of the small, clinking weight in his backpack that jostled with each step.

He had no idea why he'd done that, and no idea what he was going to do now.


	2. Release

"Does first aid work on ghosts?"

Danny had his doubts that even if it did, _this_ wound would need a lot more than bandages and sticking plasters to make it all better. The kit he'd stolen from its customary place in the hot water cupboard and which was now spread out on his bed was well stocked; explosions were a frequent occurance around the house after all and not all of them were without injury, but Jazz had put her foot down and refused to let the inventor pair's creative spirit try to "improve" it as they had nearly everything else. Which was a good thing, but it also meant nothing in here was ectoplasm based even as a starting point.

He looked at the burn salve and antiseptic. Did ghosts even _get_ sick?

There was a strained noise behind him as the ghost tried to push himself up into a sitting position. It got about halfway before its arm wobbled and gave up and it fell back down with a grunt.

"I… don't think… so?" It managed in increments, sounding as uncertain as Danny's thoughts on the matter. "Not… as if dying… comes with a manual."

The gruesome chest wound was still bleeding freely, and while there wasn't a massive puddle like there'd been in the alley pooling on the nonslip mat Danny had swiped from the bathroom and pointed the thermos at, the splatters of viscous liquid that continued to drip there promised there would be eventually.

"How much of that can you even _lose_," slipped out. A human would have died five times over by now, or at least have fallen unconscious. Phantom wasn't doing a tap dance, but he'd been relatively alert the moment he'd been released. "_Not strapped to a lab table, this is already five stars_."

"Dunno," was the helpful reply. "Don't want to find out." It looked down at the hand that had remained firmly clamped to the gap for the duration, worry tugging at its expression. "It… should have started healing… already. I don't know why it's _nnnnh!_"

Danny jerked back as green lightening crackled over it, briefly giving everything in the room ominous green highlights. This was the second time it had happened after releasing the ghost, and the third he'd seen total, and that was enough to tell it was getting worse each time. The ghost gritted its teeth in a clear effort not to make a sound and failing, only managing to turn what would have been a scream into a high pitched keening as it's back arched and limbs twitched.

Danny had never seen a seizure, but this was probably what one looked like, he thought. Sans the eldritch electricity. He had no idea what to do, so he bit his tongue and waited the thirty seconds it lasted until the ghost went still like a string cut marionette.

"Phantom?"

He cautiously reached out and lightly shook its shoulder, trying not to jostle the wound. The hand had slipped from it at some point, and he thought maybe he could see something whitish green in the horrific green mess. Bone? Did ghosts even have bones? He winced at the low hum under his hand as he did so, like touching a power substation. This was _the_ closest he'd ever been to a ghost, and the hairs on the back of his neck were alert.

He froze like he'd been dunked in liquid nitrogen when the free hand whipped up and grabbed his wrist, a little too tightly. Green eyes pinned him to the spot, before blinking and seeming to clear, and the hand released him and returned to the injury as the ghost tiredly relaxed, Danny's stillness ebbing in unison.

"Yes?"

Danny got his brain back in gear enough to remember what he was originally going to ask.

"Isn't there… someplace you could go to? Like a ghost hospital? In the Zone?"

Phantom burst out laughing and then quickly remembered why that was a bad idea.

"I've… never seen one," it managed, once the twinges subsided. "There's… someone I know but… I can't even get… to the Zone… like this."

"I could get you there." The ghost's eyebrows shot up into its hairline. Danny scowled and pressed on. "There's a thermos attachment to the portal, I could sneak in with you in it and get you through that way."

"S'cramped in there," the ghost muttered, but it wasn't a _no_. "You'd really do that?"

Danny nodded firmly. He'd already lied to his parents and harboured a ghost in his room, sneaking into the lab was just another part of the _in for a penny, in for a pound_. And it wouldn't honestly be that hard.

The ghost searched his face and seemed to like what it found there, before its expression hardened and it slumped on to its back. "Won't work."

"What?"

"Even if you… did get me in…" It held up the currently not occupied hand, ticking off fingers. "One, he's too… far from… the portal. Wouldn't make it… without help. Two, no one _would_."

It made a light chuckle that was probably meant to lighten the mood but failed due to its hysterical edge.

"I'm… not exactly… _popular_ there. In fact… I'd probably be attacked… as soon as I came through." The raised hand dropped to its side. "Wouldn't last long."

There was an awkward silence.

"And I… won't let you… try to come with me. Too dangerous… for humans," it said in a preemptive tone.

Danny hadn't even been preparing to offer. There was being a good Samaritan, in the old sense of the term, and then there was being _suicidal_, and he knew where the line was and was in no way willing to cross it for a ghost he'd only met that day. He couldn't still help feeling a wave of the despondency of wasted effort. All that, and Phantom was only going to redie in his room instead of his parent's lab?

"There's _nothing_ else?"

The ghost hesitated before replying, and that was already a bad sign. "One thing but… you're not gonna… like it."

"Just say it."

"Overshadowing. 'll stop me… falling apart. _Should_ make me… heal faster." It sounded less sure about the last part.

Danny's first instinctual reaction was a visceral _no_. Despite not saying it aloud, he could tell from the ghost's sympathetic expression that it showed on his face. "Yeah," it said.

"How do I know you're not lying?" he burst out. "How do I know you're not lying about it doing that, or about it being the only option. What if you're tricking me. How do I know you're not just gonna swan off with my body and do horrible things with it and not give it back?" At some point his hands had curled around said body, as if to protect it. He felt a little nauseous.

The ghost looked stunned, and maybe a little hopeful and was that a flicker of being impressed? "You're actually… _considering_ it?" A pause. "I trusted you… with the thermos, now… you trust me with this; I'm _not_ lying to you… about it, and I _won't_… lie to you… about it. I _promise_."

Danny snorted, and the accompanying laughter had a high note to it. "Right, so you _promise_," he said skeptically.

Phantom scowled, and then his face dropped into something completely deadly serious, and, if Danny had to admit to it, kinda terrifying. "Yeah," it said. "I do, and I don't… break them. _Ever_." A smile twitched at its face, and the sudden tension dissipated, slightly too deliberately to be really comforting. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing… but the truth, so help me God."

Danny was silent.

Phantom shifted, pressing the glove harder into the wound with a wince. "You don't… have to. You don't even… have to watch. You could just… suck me into that thing," it nodded towards where the thermos lay innocently on the bed, "and wait… a few days." It tried to smile."I don't mind."

"I'll do it."

This was a stupid idea. This was quite possibly the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas. And he couldn't quite believe the actual words had come out of his mouth. But they had, and he couldn't take them back. He swallowed nervously and held up a finger as the ghost opened its own to speak.

"_But_, only if you give it back when you're fully healed, and only if you don't do anything… _evil_ with it." The ghost closed its mouth and nodded firmly. "_Promise _me on it," Danny insisted. A slight less scary but no less serious version of the serious expression settled on the ghost's face.

It nodded again. "I promise."

Danny let out a shaky breath and ran a hand through his hair, fidgeting.

"How do we do this. Before I change my mind."

The ghost rolled with some effort onto its side.

"Just… come closer. I won't… be able to… move far. And stay still. I'll do the rest."

A slick green hand joined the other on the mat and pushed Phantom up onto his hands and knees as Danny slowly moved forward like a man walking to the noose. He didn't want to be doing this, he didn't want to be doing this…

Phantom looked up at him. "Ready?" it asked. An unspoken _do you still want to?_

"Just do it," he breathed out in an irritated huff.


	3. Relegation

Phantom rushed forward, at a speed Danny had not been expecting from the injured ghost. He stumbled back as the ghost flicked a transparent blue and disappeared into his chest, hands going to the site.

It felt like pure cold had pooled there, and before he could react further, it started _spreading_, like glacier water soaking into cloth. Where it passed, sensation dulled, and he lost all feeling of volition, arms then hands, legs then feet, neck then head. Had he still any control over it, his heart would have been racing. While he'd experienced it in slow motion, the entire thing had taken less than a second.

The worst was yet to come, because then he was _moving_, could feel muscles twitch and bones lever, and he wasn't doing it. It was a terrifying experience, being trapped inside himself, and despite Danny agreeing to this in the first place, he felt a desperate clawing animal need to get it to stop, which he tried to force down. Trust, trust. Right. Oh god.

The ghost with his body didn't seem to notice this turmoil. After blinking his eyes and shifting weight from foot to foot with a smile, it closed them, tilting his head from side to side and Danny could hear his neckbones pop. Then it cracked his knuckles. They were noises he didn't really need or want to hear right then thank you.

Then it started moving around _his_ room, touching _his_ things, and while overshadowing someone was already the ultimate invasion of privacy, Danny couldn't help bristling a little, especially when it ran his fingers over his model spaceship he'd made when he was ten, that he'd messed up the ventral fin on and which was _very delicate_.

Fortunately, it did not pick it up.

A flash of movement in the corner of his eye and his head was snapping towards it, body following, and elbow banging into the dresser in a manner that should have been painful, but which Danny could only feel in the blandest, most technical sense. His breath hitched, before being released as the ghost approached what it now realized was a mirror.

He watched himself lean forward and look into it, curiosity he didn't feel on his face. It made him want to squirm a little, but of course he couldn't do that either. The ghost took a deep deliberate breath in and out.

"This is _amazing_."

Okay no. No no no. The discomfort of the sensations of involuntary speech were then blindsided by a slight amount of disbelief because did he actually sound like that?

It tried to look at his banged elbow, a task it quickly found was impossible, before lightly touching what was no doubt going to bruise. "It actually _hurts_," it said with far too much glee, with his lips and his tongue, and a smile completely at odds with what Danny currently felt stretching the corners of his face. Nobody should be that happy about pain, Danny thought. Even it if was pain he couldn't currently seem to feel right now. If it heard this commentary, the ghost ignored it, his hand going up to his neck now, feeling the pulse there.

"It's like being alive again," that sound of slight awe not leaving the voice it was using. "I should get a willing host more often."

Okay, that was it. Danny wanted out. Or in. Or… _whatever_. He struggled against unresponsive limbs, pushing all his willpower towards moving an arm, a hand, a finger, _anything._

Nothing happened.

Nothing _continued_ to happen, even with the mounting desperate frustration he used to fuel his efforts. Eventually he was spent, not exhausted, but unable to muster up the previous mental focus.

His head cocked to one side. His voice vibrated in his chest as the ghost regarded the mirror.

"Are you still there?" Danny felt a flash of fear, which quickly turned to infuriation. It hadn't even _noticed_.

_**YES**__ I'M STILL HERE_, he felt like crying out, possibly with a bit of actual crying which he would never admit to anyone, ever.

The ghost winced, hands clapping over his ears.

"Not so _loud_."

That brought Danny up short, the barest hint of hope rising and fighting back some of the crushing helplessness. _You can hear me?_ he thought as clearly and firmly as he could, slightly agitated as the idea it might not be enough to be received crossed his mind.

His reflection gave him a flat look that could only be interpreted as _duh_ as it slowly lowered his hands.

"_Yes_, now can you tone down the volume?"

Danny didn't exactly care how 'loudly' the ghost was picking him up, but that it was, and it fueled a huge rush of relief.

_I want control back now, _he thought, a little more normally.

"It's weird," his mouth said, as if it hadn't heard him at all. "Usually when I overshadow someone they're, well, unconscious." It leaned on the dresser. "I think," it muttered.

Danny wanted to strangle something. _You THINK?_ This time he knew it hit, because there was that facial twitch under his eye. _I. Want. Control._ This time he made sure to hammer every word home. The ghost rolled his eyes.

"Calm down."

_It's my body, give it back!_

"Okay."

Danny felt like he'd been running at a door to bash it down only to find it opening as he reached it. Some mental backpedaling was required. _What?_

In the mirror, his brow furrowed.

"Just …how do I do that, exactly?"

Had he been capable of it, Danny would have buried his head in his hands.


	4. Like It Was Never There

Danny could at least say later that they _tried_. They tried everything they could think of that might work, including meditation, which given neither one of them really knew how to do it, involved a lot of sitting crosslegged on the floor while Phantom relaxed and Danny tried to hammer his limbs into obeying him through sheer willpower, a resource that would be slightly drained each time. Nothing made a dent.

"I'm not surprised," Phantom said eventually, shaking his head, yawning and stretching his legs before standing up and going over to the bed, where the exploded first aid kit still lay. "I haven't ever heard of a host managing to take control." It started packing the kit back up, surprisingly neatly. "I mean, there's legends and stuff about humans who fought off overshadowing to save their loved ones, but they're stories. Nobody's seen it happen."

Danny was quiet. He had, in fact, seen it happen, in a series of events that made him want to make excuses to be elsewhere whenever the idea of going to Wisconsin was mentioned, regardless of context. It didn't help him anyway. Phantom wasn't really putting anyone he cared about in danger. He was just… tidying.

It was kind of weird.

Phantom slid the packed kit under the bed, and the thermos back into Danny's floor tossed backpack, before looking at the mat that still had its ectoplasm on it, and making a face that Danny had to guess at because he was no longer facing the mirror. He grabbed a corner of it and dragged it out through the door, carefully checking the hallway to make sure it was unoccupied before stepping out into it.

"Which way's the bathroom?"

_Second right facing the stairs, _Danny thought at Phantom, and then had to think again a little louder when the first try wasn't picked up. He didn't really feel like talking much at all. His head nodded, and the dragging sounds resumed, punctuated by the opening and shutting of the bathroom door. Phantom unceremoniously tossed the ectoplasm stained mat into the bath and turned on the taps.

"You know," it said, as it watched the substance float down the drain like green oil on water, and Danny watched with it, "I should only be here for a day. Two days tops. It's never taken longer than that for my wounds to heal."

Danny was skeptical. _Your chest looked like you'd been attacked by a giant hole punch_.

Phantom snorted, and turned to face the bathroom mirror, a grin on his face. "I once had my entire head chopped off," it said conversationally. "It grew back, obviously. That was a two day one."

Danny was intrigued despite himself. _How does that even happen?_

Phantom propped Danny's certainly not decapitated head on a hand. "It turns out when a medieval honcho yells "Off with their head!", they're really not kidding around. They could have at least axed first." The quote had been accompanied by mocking fist waving, and the pun by a widening of the grin. "Seeing your own headless body is not something I really recommend."

_No kidding_.

Phantom continued, clearly liking having a captive audience. "I had to fight my way to my head. Which is a pain when you can only see things from a basket point of view. And _then_, I had to fight my way out with it, and since I needed one hand free for ectoblasts I had to hold myself up by the hair."

It paused as if to consider that sentence, before nodding and continuing. "I did get to hit someone with it, though," it said with a certain amount of glee. "That's a first. Made me really dizzy, but it was worth it."

It sighed.

"And then next thing I know it's starting to get all… mushy, and then I was blind, deaf and mute until the new one grew in. I still have no idea what half the things I flew into were."

_Sounds both freaky and gross,_ was all Danny could really think of to say. It sounded like a campfire horror story to be exact, almost. Phantom turned off the taps, shook the water from the now clean mat, and laid it on the floor.

"There," it said, hands on hips. "The evidence is concealed."

Danny would have fidgeted, if he could. _Two days, right?_

The ghost frowned, his hand absentmindedly rubbing a certain part of his chest as it began the journey back to his room. "Yeah. I'm feeling better already. Not like I'm coming apart at the seams, at least."

Mollified, Danny settled a little. _Alright._ Two days, he could deal with this for two days. Phantom sat on the bed. Next thing he knew, his eyes felt like they were burning with the vengeance of a thousand deceased onions, and the previously dark room lit up in various shades of night vision green. Albeit far less grainy. Phantom looked at the various posters practically rewallpapering the walls.

"I think I can guess what your _thing_ would be if you died," it said with an amused tone.

_There's nothing wrong with wanting to be an astronaut_, Danny said, a little defensively. It had been pretty obvious his parents had thought he'd grow out of it like most six year olds eventually did, even as they supported it. Quite a few other people had taken it upon themselves to point out how few people actually got to be one, as if he didn't _know_, and actually cared. It was a little annoying.

Phantom leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head. "I never said there was?" He yawned again.

_Good. _A pause. _Can you stop with the freaky eye thing?_ He was surprised said ocular orbs weren't watering in pain, but maybe the ghost wasn't feeling it the same way he was. Said ghost shrugged, and the room went dark again. Danny relaxed.

_Night, Phantom_.

There was the tail end of a "Wait, how do I…", but he'd already loosened his grip on consciousness.

He didn't dream.


	5. Coexistence

A loud beeping noise went off far too close to his head, and Phantom groaned, swatting at it from his nice drowsy warmth under the covers. His arm struck something which fell off something onto something else with a sound between a thud and a clatter, but at least the blasted noise stopped. He pulled the appendage back inside and curled away, intending to fall back into the strange comfortable not state he'd previously been in.

He drifted, and lost track of time before the covers were suddenly cruelly whipped away by some unknown force, and with the rush of cold came adrenalin, and with the adrenalin came wakefulness at a speed that really wasn't fair. He flailed to an upright position, expecting attack, and was halfway to as much of a combat stance as you could get while sitting on a bed before the full situation came to him.

A red haired human was holding the covers, and he felt a flash of annoyance, because they were his. Except, that's right, they weren't. They belonged to the human he was in. Danny, he belatedly recalled.

He wondered if Danny was awake, because he hoped it hadn't seen the moment of confusion, but he couldn't ask because the other red haired human was _right there_.

After a bit of staring, he realized at the very least it wasn't saying anything, and so he was on his own when it came to this situation.

"Uh… hi?"

The unknown human tossed the bedding onto a chair in a no nonsense manner.

"Danny, it's nine o clock. You're late for school."

Phantom knew about the minutiae of human life to a degree, albeit in a way that was casually observational, mainly disinterested, and completely unrooted in actual experience.

"Right, school," he said slowly. "That place where kids are sent to be tortured for most of the day."

There was a loud snort in the back of his mind. So Danny _was_ awake, good to know. The red haired human looked distinctly less amused.

"Funny. Mum and Dad are in the lab, _again_. I am _not _giving you a lift, so if you want to get there at something like a slightly sane time you better hurry and get dressed." And with that she was gone, shutting the room's door behind her. Phantom stared at it, bemused.

"She seems… authoritative," he observed as he plucked the covers from the deskchair and after several tries got them aligned back on the bed. "Who is she?"

_Jazz. She's my sister. She gets like that. A lot._ Fortunately, Danny's mental 'voice' wasn't as headachingly earsplittingly loud as it had been yesterday, but it still put Phantom in mind of someone shouting to be heard over a high wind. _…what are you doing._

He rolled his eyes. "Getting back into bed. It took a long time to work out how to sleep in the first place, I want to enjoy it a bit more."

_I'm late for school!_

He shifted to a more comfortable position, pulling the covers back over his head to block out the daylight. "So? I don't feel like getting tortured today."

_It's not actual torture, it just _feels_ like it_.

Phantom simply burrowed further, shutting his eyes.

_I don't like it either, but if we _don't_ go, people will definitely notice. And start asking questions._ He could almost _see_ Danny's nervousness. _While you're here you've got to act like me._

"I don't remember that being one of the terms," Phantom grumbled, but sighed and started making his way back out of the _nice, warm, since when had he last felt _warm, covers. "What now?"

And then Danny proceeded to walk him through the surprisingly complex process of getting ready in the morning, snarking at him for putting on the shirt inside out, wondering with him whether hair _really_ needed to be brushed, and doing the verbal equivalent of putting his head in his hands when Phantom discovered he had a taste for toothpaste.

Some things were embarrassing enough for both of them to warrant no further mention.

By the time they even got downstairs, Jazz had already left, and Phantom sat semi alone at the breakfast table, listening as the occasional whirr or clank came from downstairs. He probably would have wondered more about the noise if he hadn't been otherwise preoccupied.

_Dude, it's just cornflakes_.

"I haven't eaten in twenty years, give me this," is what Phantom meant to say, but it's anyone's guess how intelligible it was given it was said while in the process of said consumption. There was what could be called food in the Ghost Zone, of course, but he'd never tried it. The life of a hero is a busy one, and the life of a ghost is a never getting hungry one.

He licked the bowl clean. "I should get another."

_I kinda don't like the idea of you eating until I explode._

"That would never happen," Phantom said with absolute certainty. "I'd stop before then."

Danny's silence remained dubious. Phantom took the bowl and spoon, rinsed it under the tap, and placed them on the drying rack, before putting the milk back in the fridge, and the box of cornflakes back in the cupboard.

_Great, I'm sharing headspace with a neat freak._ The tone was more amused than sarcastic. Phantom was slightly puzzled anyway. "Trust me, I've seen neat freaks, and I am not one."

Ghosts that kept the objects of their interest obsessively catalogued and oriented down to the _micrometer_, mainly. They weren't all that uncommon. They tended not to like him, but it's not like he could help the fact that things are going to get moved around in a fight, sometimes at high speeds. Extremely high speeds.

"You know," he said as he tugged on Danny's backpack. "We'd get to school a lot faster if I could fly." It was an argument they'd already had several times that morning, Danny sulking when Phantom brought up astronautical aspirations into it, although he had to admit that was a bit of a low blow.

The answer had always been some variant of what was being said now: _no, what if someone notices?_

"Fine," Phantom said, making his way to the door and opening it just a little more roughly than he should have been. "Is there anything else I need to know about your life?" He could almost hear the cogs turning as Danny thought about it, and he stepped out onto a thankfully quiet street. The sunlight was nice on his skin.

_My friends,_ Danny said. _Sam and Tucker_. _They'll be waiting for me at the intersection. A few blocks away_, it clarified.

Phantom stared crossing the street. "What do they look like?"

_Sam's got purple eyes, um… really pale skin, she's a goth so she'll be wearing black. Left here,_ it interjected, and Phantom turned appropriately.

_She's got black hair, with a weird sticky up ponytail thing. _There was a pause_. Tucker and I actually have a bet going on whether it's a wig or not._

Phantom smiled. "Really? How much money would I win if I tugged it off?"

_Well, one, I bet it wasn't, and two, she'd kill you_.

"She'd kill _you_," he corrected. "I've got…"

In the middle of the sentence he held his hand out in view, palm up, and tried to form an ectoblast in it as a demonstration. Energy flowed down his arm and began to collect… and then backfired. His hand twitched involuntarily and painfully as familiar green sparks crawled all over it. The energy backlash rushed all the way back up his arm like fire across alcohol and back to his chest, and he clutched at the cloth covering it with a pained whine at the sharp spike of pain driven there. He breathed heavily as it began to ebb. At some point, he must have stumbled and fallen sideways onto a wall because his shoulder hurt where it had hit it and he was now leaning against it.

…_tom? Phantom!_

"'M alright," he muttered. He realized his fingernails were digging into his skin even through the cloth, and released the shirt, shifting to a more upright position.

_What _was_ that?_

"Nothing. Just trying to walk on a broken leg, apparently." He continued the more literal walking, ignoring the little aftershock pangs he continued to feel. Truthfully, he was worried. This had never happened before. No matter how injured he'd ever gotten, his powers had continued to _work_ unless specifically canceled, even if using them could be exhausting and ill advised. This was new, and he didn't like it.

…_okay._ Danny didn't seem convinced, but was at least letting it drop, which Phantom was grateful for. There was a bit of silence broken only by the sound of trudging.

_Tucker's got a red beret,_ Danny said after a while._ You can't miss it, he looks like a traffic light. Dark skin and glasses. He'll probably be using some kind of PDA._

Phantom had no idea what a PDA was, but assumed it would be relatively easy to guess what it was when there. "You know," he said thoughtfully, hand at chin. "I could take a look at your memories. You wouldn't have to tell me all this, I'd just_ know_."

The vehemence of the _NO_ he received would probably have sent him into a wall again if it was physical. As it was, it made his ears ring. "All right, all right," he muttered. "I can walk to school, and not _fly_, and you can tell me about your friends the _slow_ and _boring _way."

Danny's response sounded as bitter as he felt.


	6. Revelation To One

"Hi guys!"

_Okay, that's about three notches too cheerful. Tone it down a bit._

Phantom scowled, since he was now close enough to the humans that retorting out loud would make him look either insane or suspicious.

_That's better_. He got the impression Danny was distinctly enjoying this fact.

"Hey Danny, you're just in time, we were going to leave you behind." So that's what a PDA was.

"What kept you?" Sam's tone was more curious than accusatory.

Phantom took a deep breath and smiled apologetically, running a hand through his hair. "Sorry, my alarm didn't go off. Jazz had to wake me up." It was half true.

Sam and Tucker gave him an odd look, and he wondered if he'd messed up something _already, b_ut with Danny feeding him lines and poking him when he acted them out in a way that wasn't _Danny_, it quickly faded and they began chatting amiably as they walked. Things were going well, until a certain topic reared its head.

"So what do you think of Phantom now?" Tucker asked, displaying a frankly impressive ability to walk, talk and text or whatever he was doing without running into any street lamps.

"Uh… What about him?" Phantom said cautiously, wondering if this entire upcoming conversation would involve talking about himself in the third person. He hoped not. He couldn't help feeling the morbid curiosity of finding out just what people are saying behind your back rising despite this.

Tucker tilted the screen towards him so he could see it, sunlight momentarily flashing off it. The print was too small to see, but it was clearly some kind of article. _Is that thing even a PDA anymore,_ Danny mused from the back of his head, engendering a certain degree of confusion because what else was it supposed to be?

He opened his mouth to repeat the observation anyway, but Tucker was already talking again. "There was a ghost attack last night, and he didn't show." Phantom stiffened. "Really," he said, trying to feign a tone of casual interest only and craning his neck to get a better view of the device. "Where was it?"

"Corner Brougham and Swift," Tucker said with a certain amount of investigative pride. "About five houses got smashed up and a lady got her legs broken before the Guys In White got there. Makes you wonder."

"You'd better not be saying what I think you're saying," came from his right, where Sam had been watching. "Just because he misses _one_ ghost attack doesn't mean he's suddenly evil."

_Oh no, here we go._

Phantom found himself falling behind a bit as the two began to argue with gusto, staring vaguely off into the middle distance. A ghost had attacked the city, causing property damage and injury, although thankfully no deaths, and he'd just been snoozing away like nothing was happening. And he _hadn't known_. He _should_ have known, he'd always known, anything ghostly causing trouble in _his_ city pinged his radar like a fly struggling in a spider's web, although maybe that wasn't the best metaphor. It was something he was completely used to, and the fact that it suddenly hadn't worked because he'd been asleep felt like he'd gone blind, or like a part of him had been ripped off. Or maybe that was the guilt. Because it could have been a lot worse.

Phantom greatly disliked the GIW, but he could grudgingly admit they were competent. That was half the problem, really. He'd met ghosts who'd actually be glad he was there to beat them up as opposed to the government organization, because at least he didn't dissect them after.

_That_ thought segued into ones about the fate he would have no doubt had if Danny hadn't shown up in the nick of time in a stroke of fantastic luck, and he shuddered. The Fentons were even _worse_, because at least the GIW treated ghosts in a serious, no nonsense fashion. _They_ drew it out, and were so _cheerful_ about it.

He'd been lucky to escape _once_, when he'd been captured in prime condition with a card up his sleeve they didn't know about. In the state he'd been, a second time just wouldn't have been in the cards. No, the GIW were feared, but the Fentons were what ghosts had _nightmares_ about.

Fingers snapped in his face. "Earth to Danny! Come in, Danny!"

It took a second to realize she was talking to him. "Huh? Oh. Sorry, I zoned out a bit."

_I was wondering if you'd gone deaf._ It really hit home at that point that Danny was going to comment on _everything_ he did today without him being able to reply for much of it, just great.

Sam just raised an eyebrow. "Well, we're here." Judging from her smug expression and Tucker's slightly petulant one, she'd been the eventual victor of the debate. It felt strange to be argued over. Not that he wasn't aware his "job" inspired controversy in the town, but he tended not to interact with humans enough to really be that close to it.

_The steps are in front of you, you should probably go up them. _He bit his tongue and did so. Sam and Tucker followed him into the school for a bit and then went their separate ways with light goodbyes. Apparently they didn't have the same class he did right now. He could feel himself relaxing as they disappeared into the crowd; sustaining an act for that long had been somewhat draining. Danny then gave Phantom directions to his first class as far as he could remember in his entire existence, although with a definite air of '_something's up and I am definitely going to ask you about it later'_.

His first thought, when he opened the door, was that the teacher had a mustache that would have made Stalin proud. The unfamiliar man, who Danny introduced as 'Mr. Garrett', shot him a glare that would probably have been more uncomfortable for the teenager he was in than someone who had received glares that did actual physical damage. "You're late."

"Sorry, sir," he said deliberately contritely, ducking his head a little for good measure and probably also to hide the fact he wasn't really sorry at all. "Alarm didn't go off." The excuse had worked before, why change it?

The teacher grunted, but seemed appeased. "Take a seat and don't let it happen again, Fenton."

The world stopped.

"Fenton?" It was said quietly, in a 'did I just hear that' way.

_Yeah?_

The world didn't _actually_ stop. That would have been convenient, and apparently Phantom's afterlife didn't _do_ convenient, much as he would have welcomed Clockwork's usually insufferable meddling in this particular instance. He'd already been halfway to a seat when the teacher had said the name, and aborted landing to quickly raise a hand.

"Ah, actually? Can I go to the bathroom?" He didn't bother to hear the answer, rushing out the door and not caring that it shut on laughter.

_What going on, why are you… Phantom!_ Danny's 'tone', such as it was, was both apprehensive and exasperated.

He ignored the questions. "Where's the bathroom," he muttered.

_Down the hall but…_

He stormed down the hall and slammed the bathroom door open and then slammed it shut, striding up to the mirror with purpose and slamming his palms down on the benchtop, leaning towards it and pushing past the fact that they stung a bit. He stared into his reflection's eyes, since it was the closest he could get to a face to face confrontation with his host.

"You never said you were a Fenton," he started without preamble. It was fortunate everyone was in class making the bathroom empty at this time, or someone might have seen a boy start to apparently talk to himself.

_You never asked? _Danny sounded unconcerned, although with a slight trace of 'where is this going' worry. _It wasn't that important._

"Wasn't important. Wasn't _important._" Phantom pushed away from the bench, turning and running a hand through his hair. "You're only the son of the two deadliest ghost hunters in the city!" He hadn't even been aware they _had_ kids in a 'oh hey, they have actual lives when they're not being terrors' way. "It all makes sense! Why you were there, why you had that thermos, why you were so nonchalant about getting me to the portal… you _live_ above the… lab…" He trailed off. Jazz had even mentioned it.

_Yeah? So?_ The tone was guarded, unreadable facets just under the surface.

He didn't bother trying to decipher them, starting to pace back and forth, shooting occasional glances at the mirror. "So, the moment I slip up, I'm dead! Again! As soon as I leave, if they find out I did this, they're gonna come after me and it'll be _personal_ this time!" He started tugging at his hair.

_Hey, stop that!_

"Goodbye, cruel world, it was nice having an extension on the whole existing thing. Which could be longer." He'd almost said "wish" and stopped himself just in time. He faced the mirror again, hair ruffled in a way which gave him a slightly demented look.

_They _won't_ find out, _Danny said sharply. _I'm not going to tell them, okay? So stop panicking._

"Easier said than done," he mumbled, but he was starting to calm down. "Finding out the stakes are a _liiiittle_ higher than I thought they were, here."

_You said yourself it's only two days. You've been doing pretty well at being me so far._ There was a pause_. Well, sort of well_.

_My parents don't notice much anyway, when they get caught up in a project. You could throw a brick at them and they wouldn't care until next week. _There was a slight bitter note to the sentence.

"Okaaay." Phantom wasn't touching that with a ten foot pole. "I'm still not sure it's worth it. How hard can it be to sleep on a rooftop?"

_Very._ Danny said. _Trust me, I know. Just keep acting like me and they won't notice anything. We'll be fine._

"We?" He raised an eyebrow at the unexpected inclusion.

_A few years back Mum and Dad thought that Jazz was possessed and they ripped out all her hair trying to get the ghost that wasn't there out. It took her ages to grow it back._

"Yeesh, and you _live_ with them? This isn't exactly making me feel reassured." Nevertheless he was settled enough now to say it slightly jokingly. Danny was an expert on his own life, presumably. If he said they'd be fine, they'd probably be fine, barring Phantom's own personal cloud of Murphy's Law which was a bridge that would be crossed when come to. He shook his head to try and get the thankfully not ripped out strands to settle back in position, with a small degree of success, before leaning back on the bench, facing away from the mirror and allowing a thoughtful expression to slide onto his face. "Is that why she's so…" he rotated his hands, trying to think of the appropriate word. "…serious?"

There was a mental shrug from Danny at the first question, which was a weird sensation. _They're my parents._ The word Phantom had picked didn't quite fit, but was apparently close enough for Danny to get what he meant and answer the second. _No, she's just always been like that._

"Huh." Phantom glanced at the clock, and after a second to dredge up appropriate memory deciphered the time. "Back to class?" He hoped the answer would be no, but knew it wouldn't be.

_Back to class,_ Danny confirmed.


	7. Idee Fixe

_14… 11…_

Phantom dutifully input the locker numbers and waited for the next one. A shadow fell across the dull grey metal, and he stopped, the hairs on his neck prickling.

_Oh, no._

"Hey, Fentonio!" A palm slammed into the lockers between him and Sam, who made an indignant noise. "I got an F on that last assignment, so guess what time it is?"

Phantom looked _up_, wow Danny was short, into the smirking face of a blond, blue eyed human who clearly didn't mean anything friendly in intent. Phantom narrowed his eyes slightly, but otherwise tried to keep his face impassive. "You talking to me?" he said calmly, subtly shifting his weight. "Because I think it's time you got a working brain instead of the pencil shavings that must be stuffed between your ears."

He didn't know it was possible for Danny to make a mental inward hiss, but it managed it. Tucker certainly matched it behind him, a sotto voce "Nice knowing you, man" included.

Phantom's weight shifting turned out to be useless, because before he could blink he was being lifted up by the front of his shift and had his back slammed into the lockers. He winced, hands grabbing at the wrist doing so. That was going to bruise.

"Hear that?" the human snarled, more for the benefit of the gathering rubbernecker students than for him. "Fen_tard_ thinks he's funny." Out of the corner of his eye Phantom could see Sam was fuming, fists clenched, while Tucker was sidling away. "You think you're funny?"

_Say no, say no_.

Phantom exaggeratedly considered this, still dangling. "Hmmm." He grinned his most shit eating grin. "Yeah, I do." It wasn't the smartest thing to say, but it _was_ fun, and like hell was he going to let anyone walk over him.

_I'm dead._

Several things happened in quick succession, to the point of near simultaneity. Dash aimed a punch at Phantom's face, the fist grazing it as he jerked it quickly to the right, and Phantom's conveniently heightened foot lashed out with cut wire speed and landed with some force directly in Dash's groin. To his credit, while he dropped Phantom, who landed lightly, and doubled over, Dash wasn't entirely incapacitated. He widely swung again, and it was trivially easy to step sideways and then kick again, a little less forcefully this time, but still right in the solar plexus. Or what was probably the solar plexus. He had no idea what a solar plexus was.

Then it was over, bar the curled up groaning human on the floor. And the stinging ache of his cheekbone, because a grazed hit was still a hit. And the staring.

There was a lot of staring. A bit of stunned silence, too.

Sam was the first to find her voice. "Danny, what… I mean not that I'm complaining but…"

Phantom shrugged. "He attacked me, I defended myself." Two and two made four. Although evidently not, judging by the murmurs that had started to happen. He picked at the hem of Danny's T shirt, suddenly uncomfortable under her searching gaze. "…should I not have?"

There was a beat and then he relaxed as she smiled and those eyes turned to Dash, lightly kicking him with the tip of what Phantom noted with a bit of glee were metal tipped combat boots. "It's good to see you standing up for yourself for once." Phantom decided to ignore the last bit, although judging by an unheard _Hey!_ Danny didn't. A hand clapped him on the back from behind.

"Who cares, that was awesome! Did you see his face?" He turned into Tucker's slightly schadenfreudic smile. "High five!" Phantom grinned and dutifully slapped his hand against the upheld one. He looked like he was about to say something else, when the circled crowd of students parted like the Red Sea.

"…what is causing this commotion clogging the… _Fight Club! _Baxter! Fenton! What happened here?" A middle aged man, probably a teacher, gaped at the scene. By this point the blond human, Baxter, Phantom presumed, had recovered enough to push himself up a little, and enough to feign a certain degree of _un_recoveredness.

"Fenton attacked me, sir. I was just walking in the hallways minding my own business when he jumped me for no reason!"

Phantom's fists curled. "I did not! You attacked me first!"

"Detention, Mr. Fenton," Mr. Lancer said in a way that brooked no argument. "I will not have brawls in these halls."

"Wh… but…"

_Don't bother. He never listens._ Danny's 'voice' sounded tired.

"Now, if someone could please take Mr. Baxter to the nurse?"

"I will," a human who was equally the size of Baxter and wearing the same red and white jacket offered, holding up a hand and then helping Phantom's new archnemesis to his feet before supporting _far_ too much of his weight.

As they left, Baxter _limping_ slightly, which was infuriating, since his leg had never been hit, said nemesis turned and gave Phantom a knowing smirk before disappearing into the crowd.

He growled.

:===:

"Completely not fair."

_Yep._

"That _Lancer_ guy is a terrible teacher."

_Uh huh._

"Why should I be punished for _not_ letting him hit me?"

_It's a mystery of the universe._

Phantom paused.

"What would have happened if I _had_ let him do it and told the teacher?"

_Nothing. Dash is the school's star quarterback, he's untouchable. If he _did_ get anything it would be a slap on the wrist_. Danny was sure his bitterness about the whole thing shone through in his words, but didn't exactly care. He continued his game of 'how many pencils are in the jar on the teacher's desk', which was harder than it should have been because Phantom kept moving his head.

As if by the power of thought, Phantom made a disgusted noise and leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling and messing up Danny's count _again_. "I was right about the torture."

_Welcome to my life._

The chair he was in wobbled, overbalanced, and Phantom had to grab the surrounding desks in order to not fall to the floor with it. The sound didn't wake the supervisor sleeping on the front desk at all; as Danny had told Phantom earlier, an entire herd of rhinoceroses could barge in one wall and out the other and Mr. Boyd would continue to snooze on the desk, snoring slightly and leaving a wet spot on the papers in front of him. It was what made him so popular for detentions among the students.

It was also why they could talk to each other right now, there being no other students in the room. Even if it was more Phantom complaining and Danny being more bored than he ever thought he would be in his life.

He'd gotten… well, not _used_ to the overshadowing. It was probably something you couldn't ever get used to. But at least the amount of times he'd subconsciously tried to move, found he couldn't, freaked out and then remembered _why_ he couldn't move had been decreasing, and he'd been getting better at communicating, working out the precise amount of effort required to actually get something _sent_ without apparently blowing Phantom's eardrums off. He'd gotten from having to resend three of every ten to one over the course of the morning.

He wished he could fidget, hum… any one of the number of small physical things that could keep people occupied when they had to stay in the same place with nothing to do for an hour. Phantom sometimes did them, but it wasn't the same. He tuned back into whinge central as Phantom righted the chair and sat back in it.

"Hasn't anybody _tried_ to stop this DashBaxter guy?" It was a dark, slightly rhetorical mutter. He'd told Phantom the jock's first name shortly after the incident, and the ghost had continued to stick it onto his last name, first back to front, and then with that strange lack of spacing. It was weird, and he'd pointed it out, and been told it wasn't weird, and fifteen minutes had passed in blissful argument. Apparently ghosts had singular names, or they had titles or descriptors. The whole first name last name thing wasn't really a _thing_ in the Ghost Zone.

Phantom hadn't even known his parent's first names. They'd always been 'The Fentons'. He'd gotten what would have probably been an askance look if it was possible to look at the inside of your head askancely, and deflected the question of why he'd brought them up.

That was another thing he was getting better at. Interpreting his own body language from the _inside_.

_Sam did, once_. _She kicked him in the shins with those boots once._ _Well, several times. _Which had gotten her in trouble and him laughed at for needing to be defended by a _girl_ and so he'd quietly asked, and then loudly argued for her to refrain from doing it anymore. She'd agreed, but clearly been unhappy about it. Phantom didn't need to know all this, of course. _It didn't work_.

"I like this Sam," Phantom mused.

_Besides, you beat him up, I bet he'll think twice before trying again. _Or come back with even more determination to do so, but Danny allowed himself to be lost in a giddy fantasy of him standing triumphant over a cowering Dash, one foot planted on the jock's side while the student population looked on in pure adulation.

His mouth smirked. "You're welcome."

Wait, had Phantom seen that? He had no idea. _It _was_ pretty cool how you just kicked him in the…_

At that point his chest constricted like he'd become submerged in frigid water, a sensation that while not familiar, was enough to bring back a childhood memory of falling through thin ice. His body instinctively shivered despite being under Phantom's control, and when his breath rattled out he could _see_ it, white mist on a frosty day.

Except it was warm and sunny outside. _What the…_

The cold began to slowly thaw. His face frowned. "That's… never happened like that before," Phantom said slowly. Danny watched as his limbs stood up from the chair and started walking.

_What's never happened… where are you going?_

"There's a ghost somewhere near here. I need to take care of it."

A flash of pure terror shot through Danny. _No!_ He reeled it in enough to protest further. _I mean, can't you just let it go? My parents will get it, or the GIW, we can just stay __**here.**_

Phantom had gone over to the sash window, lifting it up and sticking his head out, looking left and right.

"People could get hurt before then. I have to get there before that."

Danny's stomach lurched as Phantom, deciding the coast was clear, leaped out of the window after some difficulty in not letting his still worn backpack get snagged on the hooks and lightly landed in the bushes below. It was a good thing they were on the first floor.

_Just stop! You don't have to be the hero all the time, let others do it!_ Danny was getting desperate. A defeated, dying Phantom was one thing. A fully healthy, dangerous malicious ghost? No. No no no. He tried to stop his legs from running across the lawn.

Phantom didn't even slow, instead picking up speed. "I _have to_. It's what I _do_."

Memories of half listened to lectures flicked through Danny's mind. _Your… Obsession._ This was bad, very very bad. You _couldn't_ stop a ghost from acting out their Obsession, or at least trying to, by all accounts. It was what held them together. Going against it was unthinkable to them, would even injure them.

Phantom shrugged. "If you want to put it that way." He kept going.

_It's my body, I should have a say!_ Danny prepared his low blow. He couldn't _stop_ Phantom's desire to act out his obsession, but maybe he could _redirect_ it. He really didn't want to go up against a ghost today, at all, especially with Phantom's ectoblasts and who knew what else on the fritz. _What kind of hero would just _ignore_ that?_

His legs screeched to a halt, skidding slightly on the wet grass. Danny tried to keep his excited _Yes!_ quiet enough that it wouldn't be picked up.

Phantom's distress was palpable, shifting one way, then the other, chewing on Danny's thumb, which ordinarily he'd be unhappy about. "People could be in danger," he said quietly, but at least he wasn't running anymore.

_And I don't count as people? If you get injured, _I _get injured!_

Judging by the change in his expression, this hadn't occurred to Phantom. Danny felt a spike of anger at the thought, but he bit it back because it seemed like this was really working, he could really get Phantom to go back inside and sit out detention, which suddenly seemed like heaven right now.

His head shook anyway. "Then I won't get injured." And with that, he was sprinting across the grounds again. Disbelief and frustration struck Danny from opposite sides.

_Wh…What!?_

Phantom bit his lip. "Sorry!"

It was all Danny could do to hang on, scream in Phantom's mental ear and hope it hurt.


	8. Entry Level Ghost Hunting

Danny was beyond angry.

He had passed the tributary of pleading fear, fallen down the waterfall of horrified denial, braved the rapids of unadulterated rage and was now drifting across the deceptively calm and still looking pool of cold fury.

He would probably be uninterested in knowing that these were actual physical locations in the Ghost Zone.

Meanwhile, Phantom was leaning a majority of his weight against a brick wall a few blocks from the school, panting heavily and clutching his side.

"Would it… kill you… to stay in… shape?" He wheezed.

_Probably_, Danny said a little pointedly, and then resumed screeching at the top of his mental lungs, deliberately taking inspiration from Tucker's singing. That was one perk to being a voice in his own head; he didn't need to stop to draw breath.

Phantom winced. "Could you _please_… stop that? I think… I'm going deaf."

_No, _Danny said, and then continued. He was going to make this as difficult as possible to the best of his ability, and since there was really only one thing he could do to do that, he was putting his all into it.

Phantom seemed to have recovered a bit, and left the wall at a slightly slower pace. Every so often he'd tilt his head and adjust his direction, small wisps of cold air leaving his lips and slight shivers, minor versions of whatever weird ghost radar thing had happened in the detention room.

Eventually the elusive ghost was tracked down to a warehouse near the docks. The occasional crashing noise could be heard inside. Tools and equipment were abandoned where the dockworkers had already fled. Phantom cautiously approached, first futilely trying to peer through dust covered windows, and then circling around to the massive warehouse doors, carefully pushing one open and wincing at the rusted screech which rang out.

The glowing, shifting movement that had been briefly glimpsed through the crack in the doors stopped and turned towards them. Danny could see it was humanoid, glowing blue and wearing a beanie for some reason. It had been levitating packing crates and tossing them into a diagonal green crack in the air that really shouldn't have been wide enough for them to fit through. Several crates still hovered in the air around it, surrounded by that same blue aura.

_Right_, Danny said nervously. _Nobody's here to be injured, how about we just back away and leave now?_

"No," Phantom whispered. "He's still stealing."

Danny would have punched him if he could.

"It's just the Box Ghost, anyway."

_It's just a _ghost_,_ Danny said. He had a bad feeling about this.

"WHO DARES DISTURB THE AWESOME AND TERRIFYING BOOOOOX GHOOOOOST!?" The ghost waved its hands above its head to emphasize the point. Even Danny had to bite back a _really?_

Phantom, unimpressed and sadly remaining unpunched, stepped out onto the warehouse floor in plain view of it, standing on the balls of his feet for some reason. Danny realized it was probably the closest he could get to flight while still on the ground. There was something slightly sad about that, somewhere.

"Me."

The Box Ghost squinted. "AND WHO ARE YOU, SMALL HUMAN?"

Danny bristled. Sure, he was short for his age, but he wasn't _small_.

"Think again, Boxy." The warehouse briefly flickered green as Phantom flashed his eyes like a badge. He punched a fist into a palm and jerked his head towards the glowing green crack in reality. "Now are you going to get in there and seal it yourself or am I going to have to send you packing?"

Danny could practically see the gears grinding in the other ghost's head. "…PHANTOM!" He pointed dramatically at them, "THE ONLY ONE SENDING PACKING WILL BE ME! AT YOU!"

The glow around the boxes intensified, and Phantom dropped into a runner's crouch. "His witty banter's improved a bit," he murmured.

The entire exchange had reminded Danny more of a cutscene from a video game than a real confrontation, and the last sentence confirmed it. To the ghosts, this wasn't a true fight, it was a dispute resolved by a contest, and one they'd had many times before by the sound of it. Danny focused on the crates, which looked heavy, just as one flung itself at them.

Danny shouted a warning, but Phantom was already moving, hurling himself to the side as the crate made a smashing noise behind them, along with… multiple metallic ones? Phantom groaned and curled in on himself a little, clutching his chest in a way that sent up warning bells. _What, what is it?_

"Can't fly," Phantom grunted. "Not good."

_No, really? …look out!_

This time Phantom moved too slow to clear the box's path completely. His left leg was clipped, and while Danny could only feel the vibration of the impact jarring up it, the way Phantom sucked in breath made him think that it probably hurt quite a bit. He was probably not feeling happy about being able to feel pain anymore.

"_Then I won't get injured,"_ Danny chimed in mockingly.

"Not helping!" Phantom leapt behind a fork lift as a crate smashed on it, and this time Danny could see the steel ingots that scattered when it broke.

He had the terrifying realization that this was a game where both players expected a certain amount of durability from their opponent. Durability Phantom currently didn't seem to have. One good hit could kill him, making this something _real _with stakes far higher than they should be.

He didn't know what would happen if he died while a ghost was overshadowing him. He really, _really_ didn't want to find out.

_Get out of here!_ _Just leave it!_ Judging by the fact Phantom shook his head as another box crashed against the chassis and almost tipped the forklift over and replied with "He'd follow us," rather than something cocky, the same thought was at least slowly occurring to him. He leaned against the forklift to brace it as another crate meteor struck. His heart was racing wildly.

"I, THE BOX GHOST, HAVE DRIVEN PHANTOM INTO HIDING WITH MY CUBES OF DEATH!"

Oooh, he could _tell_ that stung Phantom's pride. Something rounded was digging into his back, and he had a brief second to wonder why it felt important before Phantom made an exclamation and started frantically tugging off his backpack and rummaging through it. As his hand closed around a cool metal cylinder and a devious smile slowly spread across Phantom's face, he knew why.

Maybe this was actually something they could _win_.

The Box Ghost's aura had coated more of the crates piled high in the warehouse and lifted them up to where it floated out of reach, slowly rotating around its form as it laughed nasally. Phantom peered over the forklift's seat, uncapped the thermos and tracked it with the tip of it, before lowering it and scowling. "I can't get a clear shot."

_What are you… no!_

Phantom sprung out from the relative safety of the vehicle, left leg shuddering slightly, and hid the thermos behind his back, cupping his unoccupied hand around his mouth and yelling up at the ghost. "Hey, Boxy! Is it true you once _actually did_ miss the broad side of a barn? I can believe it!"

"THAT RUMOR IS A LIE AND ALSO NOT TRUE!" the Box Ghost cried, and sent three "cubes of death" hurtling towards them. Phantom was prepared for them, and while he was panting a bit, dodged them, cackling, climbing onto one of the piles of stacked crates.

"Really? You can't even hit _me!_"

This time Phantom jumped down and ducked as the box whizzed overhead and struck a large amount of others, causing a massive amount of splintered wood and ingots to flow out from the point of impact. There were still boxes between him and the Box Ghost.

Said ghost needed no further prompting. He flung box after box. Danny noted with growing alarm that while Phantom dodged them all, even flattening himself to the floor at one stage, trying to make each hit render even more of the potential ammunition unusable, his movements were getting slower and more sluggish. They were on a timer.

One was right on a collision course, and time seemed to slow down as it does when your veins become more adrenalin than blood. It was obvious that this time, Phantom would be unable to physically avoid it. Cold shot through him, and he could see the instinctively raised arm in front of him, and from the feel of it the rest of him, flash the light blue of intangibility… and then resume solidity. He flickered between states once, twice… and just after the third time, the box struck.

Danny didn't feel much of anything. He knew in an academic way the corner of it had caught him full on the right side, could feel the transferral of momentum and the way his organs compressed and shifted under it. He heard the snap. There was no pain.

Things sped up again, and were quickly dire.

Phantom howled as the force of the hit sent them skidding a short distance across the concrete floor until their back, and the back of their head, slammed painfully into an as yet unsmashed stack of boxes. Danny was starting to really hate boxes. The sound pitched into the whine of someone who is trying not to scream because breathing is agony, but is in too much pain _not_ to do it.

He had amazingly managed to keep a grip on the thermos like his life depended on it, which it very well might have. The other hand was curled around and hovering above the site of injury in a tug of war between wanting to touch it, and _not wanting it touched_. Eyes began to flutter closed as the sound petered off into shallow, labored, _bubbly_ breathing, and Danny panicked.

_No no no. Stay awake! Awake! Eyes open! I don't want to be stuck in the dark!_

That, at least, managed to have some effect. The blinking stopped and Phantom stared up at the Box Ghost, but did nothing else. The boxes had lowered a bit and Danny could vaguely read the expression on said specter's face. It wasn't one of concern, exactly, but rather the rug pulled out from under you confusion of someone who has ordered cake every Wednesday for _years_ and then come in one day only to be told that cake is only served on Tuesday, and always has been.

It seemed to be waiting for something. Probably for Phantom to get up and keep fighting, or to declare defeat. Danny was pretty sure neither was an option, for multiple reasons, but there was _one_ good thing about this terrible situation, and that was that the Box Ghost had both lowered his guard, and had the thermos pointing right at him.

_Here's your clear shot, take it, take it, come on, hurry!_

Phantom didn't respond. A cough wracked him, and red splattered across the floor, and all he did was groan a little. Danny was rapidly reaching maximum fear overdrive, and some of the overflow was pooling in frustration.

_Oh, that's bad. Very very bad._ As if he needed another sign that things were so, there was no sarcastic response. _Just press the button already!_

The Box Ghost seemed to shrug off the bewilderment, and its face cleared into triumph. It laughed.

"THE AMAZING AND POWERFUL BOX GHOST HAS FINALLY DEFEATED PHANTOM! FEAR MY BOXES OF FURY!"

One of the floating boxes began to rise above its head, and Danny could tell it was going to make a final strike to emphasize the point. Someone else had noticed too, because a thin, translucent green and slightly curved surface, as if someone had cut a circle out of a sphere, winked into existence between Danny and the Box Ghost, and just as quickly winked out again, just long enough for him to think _Yes! _and then _No!_

Danny could have screamed. He slammed all the force he could muster into a single command directed at the finger on the button. _Just __**MOVE.**_

And amazingly, miraculously, his finger responded to him, and did. By one centimeter.

Click.

One centimeter was enough. The surface of the thermos's activation button depressed, and a stream of blue white light poured out from its mouth and practically blinded him. The center of the beam was below and to the right of the Box Ghost, and it wobbled wildly as the force of the recoil jerked his arm forward, but it didn't _need_ to be pinpoint accurate; as soon as the light swiped the ghost's leg, it was doomed to be sucked in with a loud "NOOOOOOOO" that was abruptly cut off as the light suddenly vanished. Steam from the muzzle floated across his field of vision and Danny really, really hoped it didn't _need_ to be capped because it didn't seem like moving was going to be a thing any time soon. Without a master, the boxes lost their glow and unceremoniously fell to the floor, where most of them broke.

_We did it! …Phantom?_

There was no reply other than wheezing.


	9. Metaphysics

Danny could _feel_ the liquid slowly pooling in his right lung move with each breath. Something shifted in his chest, and he wanted to twitch or scream but couldn't do either. It was a distinctly uncomfortable sensation, like something was slowly burrowing in it.

The light coming from the windows had shifted to a significant slant by the time his fingers loosened enough to drop the thermos, which hit the dusty concrete with a clank and rolled. His limbs twitched, and not of his volition this time, he could tell. He fought down a bit of elation. Phantom had gotten him almost killed, he was not going to feel happy he was apparently still there. Hadn't Jazz told him about Stockholm Syndrome once? He wanted none of that.

He slowly shifted to all fours, and then his body was shuddering as he hacked up far too much red. Breathing came freer and easier after that. Then Phantom was sitting up and groaning, hand pressed to his injured side.

"Good thing _that's_ still working." His voice sounded terrible, and filled with 'glad I'm not dead' relief. To Danny's utter surprise, it was accompanied by a choked sob, which completely blindsided anything else he was thinking to say, wiping it blank.

_Are you… crying?_

"No," Phantom viciously said, roughly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I'm _not_." He muttered something under his breath, which given Danny was about as close as it's possible to be to the sound, meant he was going to hear it anyway. "Stupid human emotions."

This was beyond awkward.

_What's still working?_ He asked, glad to have an excuse for something else to say other than anything about _that_.

Phantom wiped his nose next, giving the nearest boxes a glare as if daring them to comment. "Healing," he said shakily, and then a little stronger. "I don't know why it's working on you better than it is on me right now but I'm not complaining."

_Yes I sure am glad I'm not in danger of drowning in my own blood anymore_, Danny said. _I think I remember someone telling me that _wouldn't _happen._

Apparently being passive aggressive was his coping mechanism. Could have been worse, although he felt a little guilty at the way his face fell. Phantom drew his knees in and closed his arms around them.

"I know! I messed up, okay? Happy?"

_No, not really._

Phantom sighed, released his grip on his legs, and stretched them.

"I won't go and fight ghosts anymore. Not until I've recovered."

_Promise?_

His teeth ground. "I can't."

_Then what use is it?_ Danny pressed.

"I _can't_. I'll _try_ but I _can't_."

It occurred to Danny in a spike of clarity that he was trying to get Phantom to make a promise against his Obsession. The fact that Phantom was straight up telling him he _couldn't_ spoke a great degree towards how strongly he kept them, if making one had the potential to tear him in two.

_Okay,_ he replied. _Sorry,_ he added a little belatedly.

Phantom just let out a shaky breath, and slowly stood up and gingerly walked over to where the hairline fracture in the world calmly glowed, favouring his uninjured side. "I should probably close this before someone else finds it," he said, carefully examining it. "Knowing my luck the other end's not remote at all," was darkly added.

Danny was, admittedly, curious. _So this is what a natural portal looks like_.

Phantom snorted, and reached for the very edge of the tear. "This isn't natural." His hands closed around the edge, and a jolt ran up his arm, like touching an electric fence or a memory his mind shied away from. Phantom jerked his arm away and gritted his teeth, shaking the persistent pins and needles feeling out of it.

"Ow. So apparently humans can't do that."

_Do what?_

Phantom ignored him, to his chagrin, instead staring down at his hands and whispering "Please don't backfire, please don't backfire." Unlike that ill fated attempt to create an ectoblast, cold tentatively _ebbed_ rather than rushed down his arms. It was still an unpleasant sensation.

Faint green fire flickered around his hands, and that was apparently good enough for Phantom, who grinned and closed them around the portal's edge. This time the touch didn't shock him, but sent a near constant buzzing vibration down his limbs that seemed to settle into his back teeth and stay there.

He watched as Phantom went up onto his tiptoes and deftly began to pick apart reality with his bare hands, or was it restitch it? Wisps of green were pulled away and dissipated, and the portal began to slowly shrink. From the looks of it, he'd done this before, enough times that it was automatic.

_If it isn't a natural portal, what is it?_

"Deliberate? Someone put a lot of hard work into this." Phantom stuck out his tongue as he navigated a particularly fiddly bit.

_Wait, so ghosts can _make_ portals? _What stopped them just overrunning their world, then?

"Yep. Takes years of pressing and pulling at the border, usually, months if you've found an already weak spot. Most don't bother." His head glanced towards where the thermos innocently lay. "Boxy there just has a particular knack for it."

Danny was relieved it wasn't something that could be done in an instant. There was something a little sand castle kicking entertaining about watching Phantom unpick in minutes what had taken significantly longer to make. He guessed reality just didn't like having huge holes in it, which led his mind to…

_I thought ghosts mainly came from my parent's portal._ It was why their numbers had jumped up suddenly, he knew. And also part of why he never went into the lab anymore if he could help it.

"They do now. It's a lot less effort to use, if you can get past what's on the other side." He grimaced. "How did you think I got ghosts back into the Zone before then?"

Danny hadn't really thought about it. _I hadn't really thought about it. You made portals and tossed them in? I kinda always assumed you used my parent's portal after it opened._

"Yeah, no way am I ever voluntarily going into that deathtrap of a house." Danny was about to make a comment about spending the entire night on the doorstep then, but Phantom kept talking. "No, I just tossed them into the portals _they_ made. I'm, uh, not exactly a good portal maker." He seemed slightly embarrassed by this fact.

He _wrenched_ at part of the portal, and a whole section came away and dissolved. "I can't do that as much anymore. Your parents really messed up the balance of things with that portal."

Danny felt guilty. The portal hadn't worked until he'd done some messing around with cables and needed to be sent to the ER. It was his fault it was active in the first place.

_So do you keep your own portal to toss them in, or…?_

Phantom grunted. "That's just asking to have more people going out than in if I didn't watch it constantly and it wouldn't be something I could keep closing and opening like _that_." He paused long enough to snap his fingers. "Even if reality _has _gotten weaker around here thanks to that massive hole. Mostly I just beat them up and hope they get the message to _behave_."

_And how often does that work?_ Danny asked sardonically. Ghosts tended to be set in their ways, as an understatement.

"Not very," Phantom admitted. The last of the portal came apart in his fingers, dissipating into fading green motes. The cold flowing in his veins ceased and faded to normal 'being overshadowed' levels as the werelight dulled from his hands, and he would have sighed in relief if he could.

"Amity's my…" Phantom trailed off a little.

_Lair?_

Phantom made a face. "I was gonna say _home_. 'Lair' sounds so… supervillainy." He waved Danny's hands on the last word. "The point is I'm not going to leave it defenseless, even if it isn't easy."

_It has defenses_, Danny protested, and then got sidetracked. _Wait, does this mean you lived here when you were, you know… alive?_

That gave Phantom pause in his circling of the area where the portal had been, presumably making sure he'd gotten all of it. "I… don't actually know. I don't remember much. Or anything at all really. Maybe?" It was said a little helplessly. "I have no idea."

It was weird to think about. He tried to picture what a living Phantom would have been like, and only got his ghostly form walking around with a cup of coffee and sunglasses. Which was admittedly a funny image, despite its dubious accuracy.

Phantom nodded, seemingly satisfied the tear was completely closed. He walked over to the thermos and carefully picked it up. He held it in his left hand and looked at his right, opening and closing it pensively. "You shouldn't have been able to do that," he said quietly.

Danny realized he was talking about the button press. _Maybe it was you and you thought it was me?_ He was starting to wonder if he hadn't imagined that small, momentary glimpse of _control_.

His head shook. "I couldn't do anything. Everything hurt… I couldn't move. It was you." Phantom sounded worried, which in turn worried Danny, who watched as Phantom returned to the slightly battered forklift and started searching, presumably for the cap.

…_It's a good thing, though, right? I mean… we're still alive. Well, I am._

Phantom found it, and reunited it with the main body of the thermos. "Yeah, it is." He still didn't sound too happy. Danny was about to press further when his head shook and Phantom smiled slightly. "Maybe it's your genes kicking in."

_What._

"You're a Fenton, aren't you? Maybe your desire to catch ghosts was so strong it transcended time and space and overshadowing."

_I don't want to catch ghosts! I don't want anything to do with them!_ It was something Danny had said many, many times before, and so was practiced in yelling.

Phantom laughed, and then cringed and clutched his side. "Right, and I'm currently on the other side of town in a puddle of goo instead of here. And you sure were excited when the Box Ghost was sucked up."

_Because I was glad I wasn't __**dead!**_Anything else was unthinkable to Danny, even if… no.

Phantom, suddenly a lot more cheery, placed the thermos back in the bag, zipped it up, and slung it over his shoulder, before glancing over at the small pool of coughed up blood and walking over to it.

"Maybe he's born with it, maybe it's Mabelline," Phantom singsonged.

_Stop it… _ Danny said warningly. _Wait, how come you know that slogan and not what toothpaste tastes like?_

Phantom placed a hand on the cool concrete. "It's a very long story involving a kidnapping." He shuddered. "I don't want to talk about it."

A look of what Danny presumed to be intense concentration settled on his face, as cold began to flow down his arm again, just on the edge of painful. The concrete under the blood momentarily glowed blue, and when it faded there was no sign anyone had ever been injured there. Phantom stood up… and then tottered a little and flung a hand out to lean his weight on a stack of crates. "Woog," he mumbled. "That took a lot more than it should have." He eyed the smashed crates everywhere. "Not much I can do about those."

_Let's just leave._

Phantom looked around the warehouse, dust motes picking out the sunbeams. "Yeah, good idea"

He started walking unevenly towards the doors. "I still can't believe I got beaten by the _Box Ghost_."

Somewhere, the world's smallest violin was playing for Phantom, Danny thought.

"I heard that!"


	10. Control Has Consequences

Phantom had a newfound appreciation for human hunters, if this was what they risked every day. And also a certain amount of sympathy for those who simply ran away screaming. His side _hurt_. His chest twinged with every breath, and his left leg was definitely voicing its complaints about having any weight put on it, now that the heat of the moment had passed.

Humans felt everything so _intensely_. This morning, that had been something pleasant, almost enjoyable. He should have known the pendulum could swing back the other way, and it was starting to make him feel discomforted in this body, and slightly relieved it was only for another day and a half.

He walked back to a school he absolutely did not want to go to, and wished his healing would speed up.

When he arrived, the halls were bustling, which was good according to Danny, because at least they wouldn't be late for _another _class. Phantom dodged through the crowd until he arrived back at Danny's locker, which he noticed with a bit of amusement was still half unlocked. He glanced around the crowd to see if anyone was listening, before asking "What's the other two numbers?"

Danny, for his part, was apparently preoccupied. _Hey, turn around again? No, the other way. _Phantom looked at the crowd of students. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?"

_Over there, locker 284._ There was a mental sigh. _Paulina._

Danny was as surprised as anyone when Phantom stiffened and turned away again, ducking his head and looking at the locker lock as if he could explode it with his mind. Which apparently he couldn't.

_What are you waiting for, go talk to her!_

"No. No no nope. Nuh uh." Phantom turned and began walking in the complete opposite direction, ignoring Danny's _Hey!_ and fiddling with the neck of his shirt. "You need a collar you can turn up," he muttered.

Danny was mystified.

_Why not? I'd do it, if I could. I have done it. It's a thing I do…? _Okay, not all that often, and not at all successfully, but maybe Phantom could leave a better impression. There had to be a reason he had so many teenage girls after him, some secret trick, right?

Phantom glanced at the milling students, and then began looking above their heads for something.

"Not _here_," he hissed, and then was tilted to the side as his shoulder was bumped by… Tucker? "Sorry," he appeared to say semiautomatically, and then realized who had stopped in front of him. "Uh, hi guys?"

"Hey, Danny, they say you disappeared from detention," Tucker said, readjusting his tilted glasses, and then lowering his voice. "Lancer's on the _warpath_."

"Yeah, where'd you go? It's been three hours, we were starting to think you'd gone home or something," Sam interjected. Neither of them seemed entirely bothered by this defiance of authority, just a little… worried?

Phantom opened his mouth, held up a finger, and closed it.

_I've got nothing_. "I went out and got beaten up by a ghost" was a hard thing to explain away. In the end, Phantom decided on simply postponing the problem, looking around and catching a glimpse of Paulina making her way down the hall that made Danny forget what was going on a little.

"Tell you later." He brushed past them, ignoring their sounds of protest, walking as fast as it was possible to walk, opening the bathroom door, shutting the bathroom door, and continuing to move, muttering something about humans being _everywhere._

_It's the gap between classes,_ Danny started, and then moved onto the original topic. _Why don't you want to talk to her, she's perfect. _Phantom made a choking sound and spotted the Janitor's closet, which was ajar, entering, shutting the door behind him, and jamming the handle with a mop, before flicking his eyes to green to light up the surroundings, even though a light switch was _right there._

"A perfect _terror_," he said more normally, once he was sure it was safe to talk. "Please tell me we don't share classes."

Danny was confused, shading into bewilderment. _We… share classes?_

Phantom groaned and pressed his head onto the edge of one of the shelves lining the wall like he fully intended to stay like that forever. Danny was at least glad he wasn't banging his head on it, even if he was probably going to have a big red line across his forehead.

_I don't get it. She's pretty, and popular…_ But then he supposed that last one wouldn't be a concern for "regularly appears in newspapers" Phantom, who did not seem to agree.

"She's also _insane_."

_She seems sane to me. _

Phantom seemed to decide leaning his head against the shelf was too uncomfortable and folded his arms over it first before resuming his position.

"There are only two things in this world that I fear," he said matter of factly, before pausing and looking up, tilting his head. "…three things," he corrected. He resumed pressing his head against his arms. "And she's one of them."

Danny scoffed. _Come on, you make her sound like some sort of…_ he searched for an appropriate description. _…evil villainess or something._

Phantom gave the window a thousand yarded, do you think this face is kidding, stare, which would probably have been more effective if Danny could actually _see_ his face in it, the glass being so dusty it was debatable if it let in any light at all.

_Uh, wow._ Danny paused._ …are you sure we're talking about the same Paulina?_

The stare intensified into a glare. "_Yes, _I'm sure. I'd know her anywhere. The most fanatic phan in existence."

_Oh, right_. Danny remembered now, although he still didn't see why it was making Phantom hide in a closet. _She has a locker shrine to you_.

"I did not know that but am entirely not surprised. Trust me, we've met, we've talked, and I really don't want to repeat the experience. Or remember it."

_Wait, you actually met her? When?_ The Paulina Danny knew would have been bragging about the event to all and sundry, probably spinning the phrases "daring rescue", "true love" and "knight in shining armor" into the tale, although shining spandex was more accurate.

Phantom sighed, and it definitely wasn't the way Danny sighed in situations concerning Paulina, massaging his forehead with his fingers. "It was two years ago. It turns out there's a lot of things out there for catching and binding ghosts. Most of them don't work at all. She struck lucky… or did a scary amount of research. A _scary_ amount, because what she found definitely worked on _me._"

A full bodied shudder accompanied the last word. "No offense, but I'm not going to tell you what it was. Long story short, she got careless, I managed to snap out of it enough to break it, I got _angry_… I told her _exactly_ what I thought of her and managed to get her to promise to never do anything like it again, ever, but how well that's sunk in I have no idea. Not very, by the sounds of it." He threw up his arms. "Do you know what it's like to be utterly helpless to control your actions while someone you don't know makes you _do_ things?"

_I think I have some idea,_ Danny deadpanned.

They were slowly lowered. "Oh. Right."

Further conversation was interrupted by a loud banging on the door, and the handle trying to turn and coming into conflict with the mop, before further banging.

"Open up, Fenton! I know you're in there, and you are in a world of trouble!"

Phantom, who had tensed and curled his hands into fists, relaxed. "Oh, it's just Lancer."

Just_ Lancer?_

"_Now,_ Fenton."

_How did he know we were here?_ Danny wondered. His shoulders shrugged and Phantom removed the mop, hurriedly propping it against the wall and putting on an innocent smile as the door slammed open to reveal the now significantly emptier halls, and a panting, displeasured teacher.

"Yes, sir?"

The half lidded stare he got showed that this ingratiating demeanor was being seen right through, and was not winning them any favours. Seeming to calm a bit, Lancer readjusted his tie, standing aside.

"Get to _class_, Mr. Fenton. I expect to see you in my office after school to receive your punishment. _Don't_ be late."

"Yes, sir."

Phantom nodded to hide his smile, and under Danny's direction, walked towards Physics. He could feel Lancer's gaze boring into him all the way out of eyeshot. The physics teacher gave them a similar glare when they entered, but did not stop talking.

As they sat down, Danny was pleased to see Paulina was there. Phantom, evidently, was not, judging by the way he kept looking around the room at everything _but_ her, and sat on the opposite side of the room. His physics book was still in his locker, but his bag at least contained spare paper and pens. Phantom, having spotted their presence on most everyone's desks, had already gotten them out, and was currently absentmindedly doodling as the teacher droned about trajectory calculations Danny already knew by heart.

So at least Phantom was acting exactly like him without prompting for a change. It was kind of funny.

Danny waited five minutes before beginning to fret.

_That's weird…_

His head tilted. Phantom stopped shading a surprisingly good if stylistic drawing of his usual self punching the Box Ghost in the face and wrote below it. **What is?**

_Sam and Tucker aren't here… they usually sit next to me._ And pass notes around with him. It used to drive Miss Boyle batty, until she simply stopped caring.

**Maybe **_**they**_** decided to fight a ghost**, Phantom wrote, smirking slightly. _Funny_, Danny replied flatly. Phantom tapped the end of the pen against his face, thinking. **It isn't that, though. I would know.**

A pause.**Maybe they're just late?**

_It's fifteen minutes since class started._ Phantom shrugged. **Then I have no idea**, he wrote, and resumed sketching. _Helpful, _Danny supplied, but in a halfhearted way. The rest of the class passed with no incident, although Danny continued to be slightly worried. Hopefully, they hadn't gotten in trouble for something.

This was not the first time they'd disappeared suddenly, and after the Frog Incident, Danny knew it generally meant nothing good.

The bell rang, and Phantom scrawled **Sweet freedom!**__and stretched. Danny laughed. Phantom put away the pens and paper as the class began its rush to the exit, and slung the bag over his shoulder to join it, heading towards the yet unopened locker for the _third_ time that day, this time without needing directions.

"What's next?" Phantom asked, keeping his voice low.

_Biology. Then… English._ With _Lancer_ probably giving them the evil eye the entire time, brr.

"We're speaking English right now, aren't we? Why do you have to learn it?"

_We don't learn English in English, we're just made to read boring books and write about how they make us feel._

Phantom opened his mouth.

_And no, we're not allowed to write about them making us feel like we'd rather be doing anything else_, Danny preempted.

Phantom closed his mouth. "Sounds strangely pointless."

_You tell me._ They had arrived at the locker, and Phantom had scarcely taken hold of the lock before a voice sounded from behind, and he sighed longsufferingly.

"Hey, Danny?"

Danny had to give Phantom a little prod that yes, he was the one being talked to. He turned around.

"What is… oh, hi Tucker."

The technogeek seemed slightly nervous, glancing from side to side. "Could you come with me for a minute? It's kind of important."

Phantom frowned. "Sure. What is it?" Tucker shook his head. "You'll see when we get there, come on." The bereted boy began to walk down the hall and Phantom followed, curious, but… strangely guarded.

Danny guessed that, like him, he had a bad feeling about this.

Phantom tried to ask what was going on several times on a journey that was taking them to the other end of the school, and each time received a deflective answer. Eventually, they stopped outside a classroom that was usually empty, being repurposed as a place to store spare chairs and desks. Tucker pushed his glasses up his nose and opened the door, walking through and stopping a little ways into it, before turning to face them. "It's in here."

"What is?"

Phantom made to step forward into the room, and didn't even manage to get a reply before something hard and heavy struck the back of their head.

As stars exploded across his vision before he was swallowed by blackness, Danny mused that had to hurt.


	11. Chekov's Ectogun

When Phantom came to, he was not in the position he had previously been in, and the movement of his limbs was restricted. This was not unusual.

The throbbing pain in the back of his head was new, though.

He carefully kept his eyes shut and surreptitiously tested the bonds. Rope, they felt like. Pretty tight, too. It was wrapping around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides, one of which was distinctly not enjoying this, and his back to what felt like a chair. A second set of ropes pinned his legs to two of _its_ legs. Overall, he gave this a six out of ten so far.

He wasn't going to learn much more like this, so he made a show of "jumped person gaining consciousness in agony" for the benefit of whoever might have been watching. It wasn't that hard; the groan he gave as his head spun when he lifted it was genuine. He blinked, and was met with more darkness, although there was an outline of light where a door shone. He swallowed. He was suddenly really, really, thirsty, or what he thought was thirsty, and didn't like it.

He didn't know if Danny was still out or not, but his lack of commentary pointed towards the former. One good thing about the situation; no green glow meant the rope wasn't ghostproof. He was just about to make an escape when footsteps from behind the door started heading towards him.

"…_what if you'd killed him or something?"_

"…_worked, didn't it?"_

The voices of Danny's friends. That was… something. He filed it away anyway, feigning unconsciousness as the door opened and light flooded against his eyelids.

More footsteps. Now that he was listening for it, he could make out the metal scrape of combat boots. They stopped in front of him, and he felt his face being prodded.

"He's still out."

"If he has brain damage, I'm not the one taking him to the hospital."

It was at this point Danny decided to chime in. _What's going on… am I tied up!?_

It was at times like these Phantom wished the whole mental communication thing was a two way street, mainly so he could hiss something along the lines of _not now_. It wasn't helping that Danny tended to drown out anyone else talking at the same time, which was a problem when trying to secretly find out _why_ your captors had, well, capt you.

_Phantom? Helloooo?_ Danny's 'voice' was starting to take on a panicked edge.

He would have sighed. Instead, he put on his second performance of "Kidnappee struggling their way up from the depths of unconsciousness" of the… what time was it even, anyway. There was a hushed "he's waking up!", and the sound of people shuffling back a bit. He opened his eyes, tested the ropes, and froze as he heard a familiar ascending high pitched whine.

He looked up, to see Tucker licking his lips nervously but keeping a charged ectogun held level with his head, and carefully tried to look as nonthreatening as possible, which is relatively easy when you're tied up. It seemed small, and an older model, but it was clearly Fenton tech and they had a habit of coming back to old inventions and souping them up, a tendency which had caught him out once or twice. Who knew how powerful the punch it packed really was.

If Tucker fired, Danny would get minor burns, maybe lose an eyebrow or two. He, on the other hand, would take the full brunt of the damage, and could even get pushed out of him. In his current state, that was something he definitely wanted to avoid. He'd already come too close to dissolution for his tastes.

Sam, on the other hand, had no weapon beyond an intensely dangerous expression accented by folded arms. It was a good look for her, Phantom thought.

_Sam!? Tucker!? What the…_

"What hit me?" he groaned, ignoring Danny, who seemed to be a little behind, revelations wise.

Sam spoke first. "Cut the crap. Who are you, and what have you done with Danny?" To her side, Tucker nodded affirmatively.

_Oh no, they know._ Phantom agreed, but tried to school his face into something approaching the appropriate amount of confusion and nervous humor.

"Uh, I _am_ Danny, last time I checked? What's going on, guys? Why am I tied to a chair?"

Evidently he must have done something right, because Tucker suddenly seemed uncertain. Sam, however, was having none of it. "Don't make me hit you with a chair again. Who. Are. You."

_So that's what it was. Ow, Sam._

This time Phantom's nervous chuckle was a bit too genuine for his liking. "What is this, good cop, bad cop?" Nobody said anything in reply. "What makes you think I'm _not_ me?" He was actually curious.

Danny's friends started talking at the same time, Sam ticking things off on her fingers.

"You've been acting weird all day. You disappeared from detention for three hours, and you keep zoning out when we talk to you."

"You beat up Dash…" Tucker still sounded happy about this fact. Sam gave him a Look, and he coughed and repeated more seriously. "You beat up Dash."

"There was a green light coming from underneath the janitor's closet door…"

"Not to mention you keep muttering to yourself. I mean, you sort of do that anyway, but this is the more _insane_ kind of muttering to yourself."

"And," Sam finished. "You didn't do that neck rubbing thing you do when you apologized this morning. That was the first thing that seemed strange." Tucker took one hand off the ectogun to push up his glasses.

_I have a neck rubbing thing?_ Danny thought, at the same time Phantom said. "He has a neck rubbing thing?" Because _that's_ what caught him out? He immediately realized his mistake as the other two seemed to go to battle stations.

"Busted," Tucker said, although he didn't seem overjoyed by this.

_I just want you to know I'm facepalming on the inside right now_. Having no further need to maintain an already broken masquerade, Phantom allowed himself to scowl at that.

Dropping the pretense, Phantom relaxed as much as he could in the chair, flashed his eyes neon green and grinned, clearly unsettling Sam and Tucker. "Danny picked some great friends," he said. Tucker raised the gun, preparing to fire. "Wait, wait!" He would have waved his hands if they were free. "You haven't heard the whole story yet!"

"We don't need to," Sam said, sounding shaken. "Leave Danny right now and maybe we _won't_ shoot you." Phantom's grin widened despite himself. He liked these two.

"Ah, see, well… that's kind of not possible, right now." He hurried on, because it really _did_ look like Tucker was seconds away from shooting. "I can pass on messages, though. Right now he's calling me an idiot."

That gave Tucker pause, and Phantom couldn't help letting out a breath as the gun lowered a little. "Wait, he's still _in_ there? Awake?"

"Yep. It's kind of annoyi… hey, don't shoot!"

"How do we know you're not lying?" Sam said, holding out an arm to stop Tucker, which was a good sign. "You could be making these messages up and we wouldn't know."

Phantom cocked his head to the side, then nodded. "He says in second grade Tucker threw up in your lunchbox but he told you Ricky Marsh did it." Phantom suddenly felt very sorry for whoever Ricky was.

"_What!?_" Sam said, at the same time Tucker yelped "Dude!"

"I gave him a concussion!"

"We had a pact, man!"

_I kind of like my eyebrows, Tucker. _Phantom dutifully repeated the message, trying to hide his laughter.

The tension in the room seemed to ease a little. Sam gave Tucker a little '_this is not over'_ look and then moved closer. "Danny's really there?" she said, peering into his face as if she'd be able to spot him by doing so. Phantom nodded. Her expression darkened. "Let him go."

"I _can't_. Not just yet." A muscle in her jaw clenched.

"It's that or we shoot you out… whoever you are." She was clearly trying for a rock steady ultimatum, but the operative word was 'trying'.

"You haven't guessed yet?" Phantom was genuinely surprised.

"You haven't exactly given us much to work with, here," Tucker chimed in.

He shrugged. "How about twenty questions?" The gun was lifted again, in an unimpressed manner. "…or not." He grinned his widest, biggest grin, and tilted his head. "I'm Phantom."

There was, predictably enough a stunned silence.

"…that does explain why you weren't at the ghost attack," Tucker observed eventually.

"But not _why_ you're here," Sam motioned at all of Danny. "Instead."

Phantom proceeded to explain the situation, stressing that it had been Danny's idea. Like Danny, his friends wanted complete reassurance on the two day duration and were appeased when he gave it to them. Sam had not been pleased when he told her about the encounter with the Box Ghost, and made it quite clear that doing that without Danny's permission and in fact with his antipermission was _not okay_.

Danny, having been there for all of it, did nothing more than supply corrections and push him to actually mention what he'd spent those three hours doing.

_What I want to know,_ he said after, _is where you guys got that gun._ Phantom was starting to get used to playing messenger boy.

"Oh, this?" Sam said, faux nonchalantly. "We found it in the confiscated items box in the principal's office." She was smirking slightly, looking at her black nailed fingertips, making it quite clear that _finding_ had not been so much happening as _retrieving_.

_You broke into the principal's office!?_ Phantom guessed that was impressive to someone who couldn't walk through walls. "I like your friends, Danny, can I keep them?" he said teasingly after relaying the thought.

_No_.

"It wasn't that hard," Tucker said, equally as smug. "The lock's electronic. The security is terrible."

…_he changed his grades while there, didn't he._

Phantom, having decided he was no longer in danger of being shot at, decided to get out of this frankly uncomfortable seat. He concentrated, and let intangibility wash over him, before standing up. Or partway managing to; he looked back when he felt a tug to see had it flickered out midway through the motion, leaving him stuck halfway in the chair which he was pulling with him.

Danny screamed.

Phantom rolled his eyes and phased the rest of the way out, before leaning heavily on the back of the chair. Even a brief use of such a basic power had him far more exhausted than he should be, and to say it was concerning would be an understatement.

Sam and Tucker had watched the entire thing with curiosity and varying expressions of 'noclip accidents should not happen in real life'.

"So…" Phantom said to break the rapidly descending awkward silence. "Can I stay at one of your places for the night?"

**A/N:  
>Posting this now because I will be away for the duration of the weekend. There is perhaps nothing more painful than an update that is only an Author's Note, especially if it also contains the second agony I am going to inflict, which is the word hiatus.<strong>

**I've reached the end of the buffer of what I've written of Possession, and also conveniently the end of the school year. I'll be taking a break from posting to write more of it. Updates will resume when school starts again in February of next year, or when Possession is complete, whichever comes first.**

**(You all know which is going to come first.)**


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